THE CHRISTIE CHALLENGE

Wednesday night, when he withdrew from the Republican primary, Chris Christie said:

“I want you to imagine for a second that Jefferson and Hamilton and Adams and Washington and Franklin were sitting here tonight.

“Do you think they could imagine that the country they risked their lives to create would actually be having a conversation about whether a convicted criminal should be president of the United States?

“I can't tell you how many people in New Hampshire have asked me why isn't there a law against that?

“The answer is because nobody ever thought that someone would have the audacity to run for president as a criminal and they never thought that any American electorate would actually support it.

“It's not their fault that they didn't put it in the Constitution, along with 35 years old and a natural born American citizen. They didn't think, let's throw in here “and not a criminal”.

“They thought maybe we'd get that part.

“We're going to show them now whether we do or we don't in the next ten months.

“Do we get it, or don't we?”

That is The Question: “Do we get it, or don’t we?”

“... anyone who is unwilling to say that he is unfit to be president of the United States is unfit themselves to be president of the United States.”

Christie did make one final commitment: “I want to promise you this, I am going to make sure that in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again….”

And that is The Christie Challenge. Can we rise beyond performative self-righteousness and the political illiteracy of the past 30 years and do whatever it takes to insure that “in no way to I enable Donald Trump to ever be president of the United States again”??

From now through the election - and after - the only question that needs to be asked of anyone is: do you support democracy and the rule of law? If the answer is “yes,” then they are our allies and fellow fighters in the trenches. Whatever their political beliefs, and whatever their political history before they “saw the light.”

We need to remember that the laws of aerodynamics also apply to American poliics: the eagle cannot fly with just one wing.

This is not the time to worry over particular policies and hold “purity tests” over how one supports particular policies. Without democracy and a democratic constitutional republic under the rule of law, there won’t be any opportunities to argue policies. And differences over policies create opponents, not enemies. That’s something we all have done our share of forgetting as the country has been keelhauled into hyper-partisanship over the past 40 years.

Since I am a big believer in not reinventing the wheel, I’ll let my good friend Robert Hubbell point out the obvious route to victory this November:

“We face a complicated situation. We must be strong, aggressive, and unrelenting in our efforts to preserve democracy. It cannot be otherwise—because those who seek to end democracy will stop at nothing to achieve their goals—including resorting to violence, corruption, judicial intimidation, and lies.

“We must match the anti-democratic forces stride-for-stride in determination, effort, and persistence. But we must not become them. Our efforts must be honest, transparent, and above board—because we are fighting for the hearts and minds of decent Americans who seek a democracy worthy of the Constitution. They will neither believe nor trust us if we stoop to the level of those undermining democracy.”

2024 is a momentous year. That’s Another Fine Mess is going to be deeply involved in the fight. You can support that as a paid subscriber, for only $7/month or 70/year. It really helps!

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